Chapter Twenty-Three

Jaxon

Packing an emergency kit bag used to mean a whole different thing to me. Maps, weapons, goggles, first aid kit, flares. Right now it’s juice bottle, wipes, snacks and cuddly toys.

“Did you pack the crackers?” Ruby asks me.

“I packed everything”, I say, which I did, with military like precision. “This bag has never been as well packed before.”

Ruby gives me a roll of her eyes before she takes it off me to check. After a while she hands it back, “you forgot the crayons, but you’re getting better. Four out of ten.”

“The crayons weren’t on this list”, I complain. “Were they on the list?” I ask Jessica, who is already sat patiently in her car seat. She shakes her head, but it doesn’t matter.

“You need to use your initiative General Connor”, Ruby says, a kiss on my cheek to soften the criticism. “I thought that was where you excelled.”

“You’re a tough person to please”, I say. Jessica and Ruby look at me in the same way.

“Get in the car”, Ruby says finally.

I get in the car, wait for Ruby to climb aboard, check everyone is safely belted in and then reverse out of the drive.

“You know I’m only kidding, right?” Ruby says, her hand on my knee.

“Did you see I put the books in?”

“I saw you put the books in”, Ruby says, keen not to give me too much praise. “You did good.”

I laugh, more than aware she’s teasing me. “You know I packed that in less than thirty seconds. An empty bag, stripped down. I’m going to try it blindfolded next time.”

“You need to get back to daytime TV, I think you’re taking this parenting role way too seriously.”

“I bought extra wet wipes for the car”, I say, reaching over and clicking open the glove box. “They were on sale. I got more for the house too.”

“Now I am impressed”, Ruby confesses.

“I told you I was serious”, I say.

“Serious about wet wipes?”

“About helping out where I can.”

“I appreciate it”, Ruby says, leaning over to rest her head against my shoulder. “Everything you’re doing for me and Jessica”, she adds.

It’s been a couple of weeks since Ruby invited me over for dinner, a few days since we saw each other last, and things are going better between us all than I ever imagined possible. Jessica seems to have settled into life in suburban Boston like a gold fish might relish the open sea, and Ruby seems way calmer and much more focussed than when she first arrived. My life is just as simple as it ever was, with the complication of a four year old to keep me busy. I’ve been here when Ruby needs me and careful not to impose or overstep the mark too much too soon.

Jessica starts school at the beginning of next month, and we’re already working out a schedule that suits us both and gives me time to see her. I’d love to spend some time alone with her at some point to get to know her without Ruby around, but I’m not going to push it, and force Ruby into doing something she’s not prepared for. Right now, I’m happier than I’ve been for what feels like an eternity. Not only do I get to rebuild my relationship with Ruby, I’m developing a new one with a daughter I never knew I had, and I get to do cool shit all the time, like read books on dinosaurs, show Jessica how to count, draw, and survive in a jungle in the middle of nowhere, and go on excursions. Today, for example, Ruby has finally agreed to let me take them both to the zoo, and it seems like I’m way more excited then either of them. Jessica’s got an excuse because she doesn't know what to expect, and Ruby’s just pretending not to be excited because she doesn’t fully agree with the concept.

“Are you ready to see lions, Jessica?” I ask her.

“The cats?” she says, “like Poppy?”

“A little bit bigger than Poppy, darling”, Ruby says. “Like in your jungle book. They are beautiful creatures.”

“Will there be dinosaurs?” Jessica asks.

“Sort of”, I say. “There’ll be crocodiles, alligators, maybe even komodo dragons.”

“When was the last time you went to the zoo?” Ruby asks me.

“What’s a komodo dragon?” Jessica asks.

“They don’t have alligators, crocodiles or komodo dragons”, Ruby informs me.

“Yes they do”, I say. “I saw it on the website. They have a West African dwarf crocodile.”

“A small crocodile?” Ruby teases.

“Do you know what else they have? Can you guess, Jessica?”

Jessica thinks about it for a while. “Dogs”, she guesses.

“Something a bit wilder”, I say.

“Horses?”

“Close.”

“I don’t know.”

“Gorillas”, I say, unable to hide my excitement. Jessica laughs at me banging my fist on my chest and scratching my head.

“Why?” she asks, which seems to be her joint favorite word at the moment, along with ‘mine.’

“Because they do”, I say. “It’s where they live.”

“It’s not where they should live”, Ruby says cynically.

“They live in the zoo?” Jessica asks.

“Exactly. With all of the other animals. The giraffes and lions and tiny, little crocodiles.”

Ruby smiles at me. “We’re going to need to get two kids tickets and one adult”, she says, ruffling her fingers through my hair. “I never knew you liked animals so much.”

“I love them”, I confess. “Especially tiny crocodiles.”

“I bet it’s still pretty big”, Ruby says. “Big enough to impress a little girl and her daddy.”

“I love it when you say that.”

“What?”

“When you call me Daddy”, I say.

“I’m only copying what she does”, Ruby says. “It’s just easier that way. Saves for confusion.”

The look in her eyes tells me she’s lying. “What?” she adds, knowing I’ve caught her.

“Nothing”, I say. “Absolutely nothing.” Ruby pushes my shoulder and tries to hide the color going into her cheeks. “You’re so transparent”, I say with a smile.

“Don’t push it, Jaxon”, Ruby warns. “You might not get an ice-cream with that kind of behavior.”

“You might have to punish me later.”

“Two treats in one day?” Ruby says. “You’re going to have to earn it.”

“I’ll carry her on my shoulders all the way through the reptile section”, I offer.

“It’s going to have to be more than that.”

I give her a quick glance of disapproval before we pull off towards the park. “I’ll do bedtime duties tonight.”

“Who says you’re staying over again?” Ruby says.

“I thought you could both stay at mine”, I say, only half joking. “I’ve got the extra wet wipes, and the pull out bed.”

“You’ve thought of everything.”

“You know how well prepared I am”, I say. “I even packed extra snacks in case of an emergency.”

We’re closer to the zebra entrance parking but the giraffes are more exciting to see first so I take a slight detour and head for that side. “Giraffes”, I explain to Ruby when she sees us drive straight past the sign for the parking zone, “It’s the wrong way round but it’s the better way. If she gets tired, and we have to come home early, at least we’ll have seen the best bits.”

The parking lot isn’t as full as it might be on a weekend, which means the queue to get tickets is practically non existent. Ruby baulks at the price for the three of us, especially because Jessica’s not even five years old, but I’m happy to pay for us all.

I take Ruby on my shoulders at first, but as soon as she sees her first animal, which happens to be a kangaroo, she’s wiggling at me to be released. I lift her down, let her go and assure Ruby that she’s absolutely fine in here on her own, and if I see her attempting to climb into one of the enclosures, I’ll be straight in there after her.

I think Ruby struggles sometimes to let Jessica play on her own, so I’m trying as much as I can to encourage it. We watch her marvel at the kangaroos, spin around to check that we’re looking too, catch sight of the giraffes, ten times as tall as her, and run goggle eyed in their direction. This happens repeatedly, the more animals Jessica realizes there are. To be fair, I’m not that far behind her, sometimes even taking the lead, when I catch a glimpse of something I can’t wait to see up close. After a while, and when she gets into it too, Ruby joins us both, so all three of us are running between enclosures and cages like we’re all seeing something none of us have ever seen before.

Jessica is amazed by the giraffes, taken aback by the different types of birds, stunned by the snakes, and left completely speechless by the lions and tigers. In fact, we all are. I know lions are the kings of the jungle, but for me, the real beauty lies in the lithe athleticism of the tigers, the majesty of their colors and their understated ferocity.

We stare silently, mouths agape, as we watch them laze about in their enclosure, fighting playfully from time to time, or sitting silently like we are and watching us back.

“The first time I came here I was ten years old”, I tell Ruby. “It was my birthday, and I’d been on at my parents to bring me for practically the entire year. It was much smaller back then, badly run, going into debt I learned afterwards, and it was an awful day, it rained constantly, Mom and Dad were fighting. I fell out with my brother.”

“Sounds amazing”, Ruby says. “It sounds like my family.”

“It was”, I confess. “Not because of those things. It was horrible because of those things, the animals didn’t want to come out, my parents didn’t want to be here. When they weren’t looking I ran.” Ruby and I share a look. “You weren’t the only rebel growing up”, I add. “They had the whole park looking for me. It took them three hours. Dad took off his belt for that, even though it was meant to be my birthday, but it was worth it.”

“Where were you?” Ruby asks, excited now.

I shrug. “Right here”, I say. “Just looking at the tigers all that time. Before, the fence didn’t reach this far, and at the edges there were bushes. I just hid in one of those. Some of these might even be the same tigers as before. Another kid found me and told his mom, after that I was dragged out. I didn’t even have time to see the gorillas again.”

“You had three hours while they were looking for you”, Ruby points out.

“Yeah”, I agree. “I suppose I could have. I didn’t really think of that at the time, though, I was just having fun with the tigers.”

We take a break to eat some of the food we’ve brought with us, and afterwards we all get ice creams, which we eat from a safe distance while we stare at the camels. Half of Jessica’s ends up all on her nose, around her mouth and all over her T-shirt, which is part of the fun of eating it. After lunch we walk through the butterfly enclosure, watch the gorilla’s getting fed, and take Jessica into the petting zoo.

Finally, when Jessica has just about burned off her ice cream sugar rush and pretty much exhausted herself completely, and it’s almost time to go, we make one last stop, to check out the closest thing they’ve got to a dinosaur.

Other girls of Jessica’s age are into dolls, Peppa Pig and cute, cuddly animals, but not this one, and I can’t help but think that her mother’s influence mixed with my genes, might have something to do with it. I can’t imagine Jessica has spent the last four years pushing around a miniature pram on the streets of Mexico City, with Ruby there to guide her, which is why she doesn’t share common interests that might be expected of someone of her age and gender. Jessica is into dinosaurs, animals in general, drawing, languages and speaking her mind, and even though the dinosaur is a snub-nosed west African dwarf crocodile and not a tyrannosaurus rex, she’s still absolutely fascinated by it.

On the way home, clutching a dinosaur keychain I’ve bought her from the gift shop, even though she doesn’t have any keys to use it with, she falls asleep, mouth open, a big smile of contentment on her face.

“Admit you enjoyed that”, I say to Ruby.

“They had more space that I expected”, Ruby says. “But they’re still in cages.”

“We’re all in cages”, I say. “The car, our houses.”

“That’s something we choose, though. These animals don’t get to choose.”

“They also don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from”, I point out. “They’re pretty well looked after. High life expectancy, no stress from predators.”

“It’s not the same”, Ruby says. “It’s not their natural home. All these people coming every day to stare at them. I know it’s great for the kids, but they’re too young to fully understand. They should see them in their natural habitat.”

“Maybe when she’s a bit older”, I suggest. “Until then, it’ll have to be the zoo.”

“Thank you, Jaxon”, Ruby says after a while. “I had a good time.”

“I know you did”, I point out. “I saw you running between the cages. It’s alright, you know, to enjoy it. No one’s going to think you’re a bad person. Zoos are fundamentally wrong, but so much of the rest of the way we live is as well, we can’t fight it all.”

“Daytime TV?” Ruby asks.

“I think that might have been late night radio, actually. Either that or something my psychologist told me once.”

We laugh together. “That’s something we share in common”, Ruby says.

“So, where am I going?” I ask.

“Let’s go back to mine”, Ruby says. “Stay over tonight. You know, if you want to.”

“I want to”, I say. “That sounds amazing.”

“I’ll speak to Dad about taking her for a weekend so we can do something special.”

“This isn’t special enough for you?”

Ruby gives me that disapproving look again. “Something with just the two of us”, she says. “I think we need it.”

“I’d like that”, I say. “We could have a lie in for once without Jessica coming in at six am and jumping all over the bed.”

Ruby puts her hand on my inner thigh and squeezes. “Maybe she needs a little brother or sister.”

I look at Ruby just to see if she’s joking, which by the look she gives me indicates she clearly is. “Then you really would have to keep me around”, I say.

“I don’t know”, Ruby says, spinning it out, perhaps to test my reaction. “Starting a proper family could be fun. It’s not like either of us are working at the moment.”

“Practising would be good”, I say.

Ruby squeezes my inner thigh a little bit tighter, only centimeters from my swelling cock. “Not good”, Ruby says, “practising would be incredible.”

I laugh. “You carry on like that, we might have to start practising straight away.”

Ruby rests her head against my shoulder. “Let’s get this one home first”, she says, “then we can work on you and me.”

“I like the sound of that”, I confess.

“Me too”, Ruby says, snuggling even deeper into me. “I like the sound of it all.”